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THE WESTERN:
FROM SILENTS TO THE
SEVENTIES
by George N. Fenin and William K. Everson
A review by David Pietrusza
FROM SILENTS TO THE
SEVENTIES
by George N. Fenin and William K. Everson
A review by David Pietrusza
THE WESTERN: FROM SILENTS TO THE SEVENTIES by George N.
Fenin and William K. Everson, Penguin Books, New York, 396 pp.
Serious discussion of the Western film are few and far between. Most
discussions of the genre fall into the category of fan magazine
filmographies with little real critical evaluation or intelligent discussion
of the achievements of the makers of such sage-brush sagas.
Standing apart from this tradition of sloppy scholarship and publicity
department hackwork was a 1962 work by George Fenin and
William Everson, an in-depth study which went far beyond the norm
and raised the level of discussion about the Western to that of serious
cinema criticism.
At hand is an updated version of that work. George Fenin has added
two chapters to the volume detailing developments of the last decade,
events which have moved the form further away from the stereotyped
images of the past and which gave given a new vigor to the one
American film style that has attained universal appeal with global
audiences.
Despite these valuable additions, however, the sections on the silent
screen still stunningly remain the high point of this history not only and
make this volume absolutely must reading for the serious student of
screen westerns but also a necessary reference point for the
aficionados of the silent film. From Edwin S. Porter's The Great
Train Robbery to the westerns of D.W. Griffith and Thomas Ince, to
the ultra-realism of the great William S. Hart to the showy and stylized
presentations of Tom Mix and a host of imitators, this is an estimable
record of the silent tradition.
It is little remembered that the very earliest of Westerns, such as those
of Hart, cared little for the Wild West Show formulas and insipid
plottings that often characterized the form and which led to such
sugary confections as the "singing-cowboy" or the run of cliched
characters and scenarios that made "Western" and "Grade B" almost
synonymous.
It is one of Hollywood's ironies that William S. Hart, the stone-faced
man who stood more than the rest for the authentic mode of Western
drama, who (although he did spend part of his youth in the 19th
century West) was a born Easterner and originally a Shakespearean
and Broadway performer, while Tom Mix, the originator of the
showy, glamorous, ersatz Western form was a Westerner to his very
core who owned a ranch, fought in Mexican revolutions, did stunt
work, won rodeo prizes and captured bandits as a real-life sheriff and
U.S. deputy marshal.
For some time the Western was needlessly split between two
disparate forms--the "B" series, nurtured by such stalwarts as Ken
Maynard, Hoot Gibson, and Buck Jones; and the "epic," exemplified
by such films as The Covered Wagon, The Iron Horse, Red River,
and Stagecoach. Comparatively rare were good, solid,
medium-budget pictures.
With the coming of television Westerns (for which the authors care
little) the "B" series oat-burners died. Replacing them were, of course,
individual "B" pictures and some new forms as well. Sexual themes,
psychological motifs and the new stereotype of the noble and
exploited Red Man came to the fore. The Italian "Spaghetti" Western
and such Sam Peckinpaugh offerings as The Wild Bunch saw the
genre take an increasing turn toward violence and graphic brutality.
Along with a more-or-less chronological treatment of the topic, The
Westerns offers fascinating chapters devoted to such little noted facets
of the subject as stuntmen and second-unit directors (those men
responsible for the vivid action sequences that enliven even the most
ponderous of these sagas), the format's perennial international
audience and home-grown competition, and the continued-next-week
format of the Western serial.
The bottom line: The Westerns is indispensable for those interested in
either the Western per se or the art of cinema in generally admirably
written and scrupulously researched.
Fenin and William K. Everson, Penguin Books, New York, 396 pp.
Serious discussion of the Western film are few and far between. Most
discussions of the genre fall into the category of fan magazine
filmographies with little real critical evaluation or intelligent discussion
of the achievements of the makers of such sage-brush sagas.
Standing apart from this tradition of sloppy scholarship and publicity
department hackwork was a 1962 work by George Fenin and
William Everson, an in-depth study which went far beyond the norm
and raised the level of discussion about the Western to that of serious
cinema criticism.
At hand is an updated version of that work. George Fenin has added
two chapters to the volume detailing developments of the last decade,
events which have moved the form further away from the stereotyped
images of the past and which gave given a new vigor to the one
American film style that has attained universal appeal with global
audiences.
Despite these valuable additions, however, the sections on the silent
screen still stunningly remain the high point of this history not only and
make this volume absolutely must reading for the serious student of
screen westerns but also a necessary reference point for the
aficionados of the silent film. From Edwin S. Porter's The Great
Train Robbery to the westerns of D.W. Griffith and Thomas Ince, to
the ultra-realism of the great William S. Hart to the showy and stylized
presentations of Tom Mix and a host of imitators, this is an estimable
record of the silent tradition.
It is little remembered that the very earliest of Westerns, such as those
of Hart, cared little for the Wild West Show formulas and insipid
plottings that often characterized the form and which led to such
sugary confections as the "singing-cowboy" or the run of cliched
characters and scenarios that made "Western" and "Grade B" almost
synonymous.
It is one of Hollywood's ironies that William S. Hart, the stone-faced
man who stood more than the rest for the authentic mode of Western
drama, who (although he did spend part of his youth in the 19th
century West) was a born Easterner and originally a Shakespearean
and Broadway performer, while Tom Mix, the originator of the
showy, glamorous, ersatz Western form was a Westerner to his very
core who owned a ranch, fought in Mexican revolutions, did stunt
work, won rodeo prizes and captured bandits as a real-life sheriff and
U.S. deputy marshal.
For some time the Western was needlessly split between two
disparate forms--the "B" series, nurtured by such stalwarts as Ken
Maynard, Hoot Gibson, and Buck Jones; and the "epic," exemplified
by such films as The Covered Wagon, The Iron Horse, Red River,
and Stagecoach. Comparatively rare were good, solid,
medium-budget pictures.
With the coming of television Westerns (for which the authors care
little) the "B" series oat-burners died. Replacing them were, of course,
individual "B" pictures and some new forms as well. Sexual themes,
psychological motifs and the new stereotype of the noble and
exploited Red Man came to the fore. The Italian "Spaghetti" Western
and such Sam Peckinpaugh offerings as The Wild Bunch saw the
genre take an increasing turn toward violence and graphic brutality.
Along with a more-or-less chronological treatment of the topic, The
Westerns offers fascinating chapters devoted to such little noted facets
of the subject as stuntmen and second-unit directors (those men
responsible for the vivid action sequences that enliven even the most
ponderous of these sagas), the format's perennial international
audience and home-grown competition, and the continued-next-week
format of the Western serial.
The bottom line: The Westerns is indispensable for those interested in
either the Western per se or the art of cinema in generally admirably
written and scrupulously researched.
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